Columnist-Europe's Identity Crisis Fuels Rising Anti-Muslim Sentiment

[Bob's World]

COIN is not about the prevention of an insurgency, but about countering it.


FM you-know-which-one

Politicians at home must not think in COIN terms. That would equal thinking about suppressing citizen's discontent. It's about suppression.
NOT ACCEPTABLE!

I'll face anyone who uses the term "COIN" inflationary and thus helps to make it appear acceptable in a domestic environment, too.


COIN is too dangerous for domestic freedom and democracy.
It MUST NOT PASS THE RUBICON.

I admit a very heavy bit of baggage has been hung around the neck of COIN. Many think, as Fuchs appears to here, that it is about controlling a populace in order to preserve a government. This comes from the old school, virtually entirely obsolete perspective of COIN practiced by the British Colonial Empire, learned and employed by the US during it's own Colonial forays in the first half of the last century, and then codified in the Small Wars Manual by the Marines before WWII; and largely echoed in the current COIN manual

Back then, the mission was for a foreign power to suppress the will of the populace in order to sustain in power their puppet governments. Those governments sole function was to serve the interests of the foreign power and to suppress/control their populaces. For whatever reason, we have come to call that "COIN" and have rolled it into current doctrine and make it the name of the mission we are conducting places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

The problems are several:

1. The intervening/Colonial/external power is not doing COIN. Period. Only the host nation can do COIN. Call what those other guys are doing whatever you want, but don't call it COIN as it just confuses the matter and leads to wholly inappropriate roles and engagement.

2. The mission is now reversed. Pre-globalization the mission was in fact to keep a friendly government (one willing to support your interests over the interests of their own populaces) in power and to suppress any popular challenge to that relationship. Now with empowered populaces being far more dangerous than any tin-horn government is, the mission is to support the will of the people and to protect them from; help them drive the reform of, or help them remove such illegitimate despots. Friendly dictators can no longer control their populaces so whether we recognize it or not, the mission has flipped 180 degrees for the external powers who have interests to maintain in some foreign land. They can no longer simply ignore or help suppress the populace and rely on their relationship with these illegitimate leaders.

3. This means the COIN mission has changed for the Host nation well. To date it has been to simply suppress the illegal challenges to one's reign, and to rely on big, foreign, brother to help one do so. Control was a Verb rather than a noun. Now these government actually have to perform, they actually have to listen to their people, they actually have to provide good governance. COIN is no longer a campaign of oppression waged only once the populace goes violent to suppress that violence, COIN is now the day in, day out provision of good governance that prevents such organized, illegal challenges to governance from emerging in the first place.

So, in summary:
Only HN govt does COIN.
"Small Wars" mission is now 180-out from when the manual was written. Now it is to truly "liberate the oppressed" and to work to ensure that legitimate governance is in place; rather than the old model to work to keep illegitimate government in place.

It's a bold new world. Once we recognize that we'll like it better.

COIN is the mission for every government, everywhere, everyday. It is only when they forget that and act with impunity toward their own people, or allow some foreign power to co-opt their legitimacy that one has problems.

Or in old school terms for when insurgency exists:

Government = COIN; Populace = Insurgency

In new school terms when insurgency exists:

Government = Poor Governance; Populace = Counter-Poor Governance


The focus for that intervening external power who has interests to service must be on understanding the concerns of the populace, then focusing on working with the government to develop and adopt appropriate reforms to address the issues among the people that are being exploited by the insurgent organizations. Reconcile the issues, not the insurgent/insurgent organization. They can get on board or face the consequences of their actions.

[120mm]

I agree that Fuchs' concept of COIN is tragically limited, and therefore flawed.

A perfect COIN campaign, in my mind would involve minimum to no violence, and would result in insurgent shifting from, or even avoiding violence and resolving their root causes by entering into political discourse.

This is, of course attributing rationality to insurgents, as well as the government.

[Fuchs]

I submit that high level authorities have published official texts about COIN and take away the option of defining it at will from you long ago.


Invent your own term if you think of something else. Do not seize an established term for something different.

[Bob's World]

I submit that high level authorities have published official texts about COIN and take away the option of defining it at will from you long ago.


Invent your own term if you think of something else. Do not seize an established term for something different.

Submit as you wish, but I submit that the current crop of definitions (of which there is certainly no one version or concrete perspective as you imply) are all overly concerned about what the problem looks like at a given time rather than looking to what are the common causations of a variety of problems that can all then manifest in a wide range of non-violent to violent ways; but that demand common cures to address causation.

For example, Drug-driven violence in Mexico look more like insurgency in Afghanistan than car burning in France does;

But the car burning in France shares a much closer causal connection to Afghanistan by far. So COIN-based approaches in France focused on understanding the concerns of the populace, mitigating violence and repairing governance could work.

In Mexico the driving causation comes not from the government, but rather from the demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. COIN approaches there would totally miss the mark on causation, only address the common symptoms of violence and violent organizations, and leave the primary causation untouched and thus the problem unsolved.

When I pull out my US COIN manual it tells me in the first sentence of the first paragraph of the first chapter that "COIN is warfare." That puts the US military in an intellectual and operational box that virtually guarantees long, drawnout military-led approaches to COIN. I prefer not to limit myself to that small, ineffective, unproven box; others like it there. I don't judge, I just think they are missing the big picture in very important ways that hinder true success.

[Global Scout]

Posted by Graycap,

Anyway I'd like to submit to your attention some kind of different problem with COIN and domestic policy: organized crime.

In Italy we have some regions that are in some kind of extra territorial status. Nothing seems bad: there are elections, there is an administration etc.. But everything is controlled by organized crime. I've came to think of it like a won insurrection. Without too much violence, even if we must remeber the fallen heroes. We reached the IED stage and after that everything calmed down.

The provocation: which kind of strategy, if not COIN, must be envisaged?

Bernard Fall, when had to explain why military evalutions of pink area were futile, said: look at taxes. When no more tax income come from a village that village have flipped side. In south Italy we have entire towns with no income taxes....

Graycap, thanks for this post. Italy has always fascinated me. In the north you have a very modern and successful society, while in the south you something that looks like parts of Africa or South America. The most recent crisis in southern Italy is the new garbage crisis, and now apparently the national government is going to step in take over.

I also read a report that a certain percentage of Italy's GNP comes from organized crime (I believe it was 10% or so), and I suspect that means 80% plus of the GNP for the south, and of course they're not paying taxes, because who is going to claim money received through crime?

I actually think Bob's World's claims of a failure of government are very appropriate here. The Italians I have met in the North can't stand the south and even have a political party that advocates separating the south because they see the South as more culturalll aligned with a corrupt African country than the true Italy in the North (Rome and further north of). I watch these problems in the news and wonder where the national government is? Why don't they respond? Why doesn't the national government have the courage to wipe out organized crime in southern Italy (or at least suppress it)? Why are these people living in such poverty, while northern Italy is rich?

I don't see how a modern nation such as Italy can ignore half its populace and simply claim they're not really Italians. I agree the approach will be much COIN like. National security forces will have to take over local governments and purge the corrupt members out, and then transition to a legitimate government. Economic development in the South is a must. Italy can't be a great nation until it addresses its internal problems. Eventually the problems in the South will become to large to ignore, and they'll even be tougher to solve then.

[Graycap]

I don't want to derail this thread and my intention was only to stimulate a reflection about COIN strategies in the western world.

I think the BW vision of COIN could be appllied in the context fo italian ciminal low level "insurrection". I've found that using the 4GW construct could very well help understand what I've called the italian insurrection. The poblem is the gradual dissolution of State masked with more and more econoimic retard and social problems.

In Italy we faced the Euro terrorism of the seventies that could be interpreted like a tentative insurrectionalist strategy. The red brigades, in their final stages, theorized the alliance of political terrorism with crime.

Globalscout has writte about garbage crisis. This is not a simplicistic garbage problem. The citizens concerned are really desperate. Infact when a garbage site has been found immediately after it become uncontrolled and everything, from city garbage to radioactive material could be dumped inside since criminal gangs control the garbage business.

On the other side the gangs don't accept an efficient state able to perform such a basic duty. So they actually mix with citizen's to stir up protests with calculated violence. Yesterday they have surrounded two police cars and destroyed the with iron pieces. But do not make mistakes: they used that iron poles just because it was more than sufficient to make clear their position. They could use Ak47 if they thought it could be useful.
Some days ago the Calabria's gangs let the police find a LAW72 expended case before the office of the prosecutor that had confiscated some house ti them. Just to make the message clear.

We really need COIN strategy. Not COIN operations. Our army has been busy a number of times helping the civilian police but with no strategy.
Just more guarded places, more VCP. The criminal insurgent take immediately a low profile and after some months they are back in business.
The garbage dumps were made military strategic sites to allow their control by military units!!

We should have more administrative control, more low level control and more civil justice and first of all a strategy towards "the fence sitters" the thousands people that live through jobs warranted by criminal control. Not only more policemen.

[Global Scout]

Graycap,

I'm not so sure this topic is derailing the thread, but if you feel it is I think it would be worthwhile to start a thread discussing this. I'm shocked by the inefficiency of police in general. They rarely implement strategies of any sort, but when they do they seem to be extremely successful. The good news is I'm seeing more and more case studies of where police are implementing strategies (not COIN, but certain lessons are relevant) to clean up certain areas, instead of simply surging more patrols into the area. I think we'll see a sharp learning curb and more effective policing in the modern world (hopefully that includes southern Italy) in the near future.

[davidbfpo]

Rod Liddle writes in a certain style for The Spectator, but within are some gems, such as:

An awful lot of the new nastiness, spreading across Europe, can be put down to the refusal of the traditional parties to engage with the problems which their voters are forced to put up with. It is not simply political correctness, but political blindness — of much the same kind which afflicted our own Labour party in the past 15 years and which saw the British National Party, a lumbering creature of the dark led by idiots, bite huge chunks out of the Labour vote in the north of England and in Essex.

You can stretch people’s tolerance for a surprisingly long period of time, but when it snaps, it snaps back with real violence. And there are plenty of people like Pim Fortuyn or Le Pen or Griffin or Jorg Haider poised to make whatever advantage of it they can.

Link:http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/al...ge-alert.thtml

[Bob's World]

"You can stretch people’s tolerance for a surprisingly long period of time, but when it snaps, it snaps back with real violence."

From a Mr. Ron Liddle in David's post above. This struck me as very similar to:

"all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

From one Mr. T. Jefferson, with editorial input by a Mr Franklin and Adams.

[Firn]

On the other side the gangs don't accept an efficient state able to perform such a basic duty. So they actually mix with citizen's to stir up protests with calculated violence. Yesterday they have surrounded two police cars and destroyed the with iron pieces. But do not make mistakes: they used that iron poles just because it was more than sufficient to make clear their position. They could use Ak47 if they thought it could be useful.
Some days ago the Calabria's gangs let the police find a LAW72 expended case before the office of the prosecutor that had confiscated some house ti them. Just to make the message clear.

We really need COIN strategy. Not COIN operations. Our army has been busy a number of times helping the civilian police but with no strategy.
Just more guarded places, more VCP. The criminal insurgent take immediately a low profile and after some months they are back in business.
The garbage dumps were made military strategic sites to allow their control by military units!!

We should have more administrative control, more low level control and more civil justice and first of all a strategy towards "the fence sitters" the thousands people that live through jobs warranted by criminal control. Not only more policemen.

When thinking about the various criminal organizations called mafia outside of Italy this quote is almost in the back of my mind: "The aggressor is always peace-loving ... he would prefer to take over our country unopposed."

Brutal and vicious violence has always been a hallmark of them. It is an organized violence administered by systems of rule which are deeply impressed into the populance of the south. Most of the time it seems that the bands don't even have to resort to menacing to extract their pizzo or to control their activities. Perhaps because everybody knows that brutal violence will be used against them if they cross certain lines.

Firn

[davidbfpo]

Via an email from the author Chris Allen, who has published this article “Fear and loathing: the political discourse in relation to Muslims and Islam in the British contemporary setting”. It can be downloaded free using the following link:http://tinyurl.com/37fduvq

To read and download other articles in the special edition of the periodical, please use the following link:http://tinyurl.com/3yedytx

He also has a book:www.islamophobiabook.com

[davidbfpo]

A US writer for once takes a different viewpoint to Europe turning Muslim:http://www.realclearreligion.org/art...is_106239.html

I also found this article on Europe's effect on the Muslim Middle East & North Africa interesting:http://www.realclearreligion.org/art...on_106230.html